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Tombstone Tuesday/This Day In Family History: Norman Scott Strickland’s Birth Day

Looking from Hunter's Lane across the fields of the Old Dodson Place, Mecklenburg County, Virginia

Travel south from Chase City, Virginia on the Boydton Road about 15 minutes, turn left at Dodson Corners onto Hunter’s Lane. Follow the bend to the left, through a grove of pine to the meadows shorn of their grass by cows now shunning the noon heat among the shade of oak trees. Sitting on your left will be the headquarters of the Butcher’s Creek Hunt Club. This house marks the site of the Old Dodson Place, the homeplace of George and Florette Strickland’s family during the depression, and where my father, Norman, grew up. The youngest son in a family of four boys, Norman was born this day 1928.

This past spring I returned to this land, to breathe some ancestral smells, look out on rolling land my father once walked. Had it not been for the company of coon dogs who rushed to greet me, I would have tramped through the long grass, risking contact with some very healthy poison ivy, to look for crumbled buildings and civil war trenches, farm garbage dumps and Grandfather-dug watering holes. The air was hot and muggy, heavy with the fragrance of wild honeysuckle and white wild rose.

Towering above me were oak trees, just acorns on the ground when my dad shot squirrels out of their predecessors. Thick brambles of poison ivy, honey suckle, rose, and pricker bushes grew at their base. It would have been along hedgerows like these that rabbits hopped out, to eat by the road’s edge. And my father with buddy Charles D. would slowly approach in his daddy’s 1938 Ford pickup truck. While one boy drove, the other would lie on the huge front fender, flat on his belly, rifle in hand. Spot the rabbit, catch it in the scope, pull the trigger. The rabbit went from being vermin to being dinner.

Norman Scott Strickland grew up to leave this farm, to leave Chase City. He was coworker to fellow General Electric electrical engineers for 35 years, a choir member of countless church groups, a community leader, a good neighbor; a gardener, a bird watcher, a dog lover. Most of all Norman Scott Strickland was a gentle friend, ever ready with a smile, particularly for his wife, and six children, and two grandchildren. After losing a third battle to cancer 16 July 2006, Norman returned to the red soil of Mecklenburg County, where I can come and leave a stone in remembrance of his life well lived.

Kay, You have a true gift of writing and describing the subject so beautifully. This is a lovely tribute to Norman. He was a gentle gentleman who loved and enjoyed his family and life in general. He touched so many lives during his almost 78 years on this earth. The pictures are great!! Thank you so much for posting TOMBSTONE TUESDAY in memory of Norman.

Have printed your blog to do it justice with my full attention tonight :} I was thinking of Norman all day yesterday and we paid tribute to him as Richard, David and I gathered for dinner last night. The alpenglow was gorgeous on Taylor Mountain. I gave him full credit :}